United States v. Stevens

Brief Fact Summary.

The federal law criminalized the commercial creation, sale, or possession of any depiction where a living animal is intentionally tortured or killed if that conduct violates the federal or state law. The respondent challenged his indictment for disturbing videos of dogfighting, which is unlawful in all 50 States.

Synopsis of Rule of Law.

The First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech does not extend only to categories of speech that survive an ad hoc balancing of relative social costs and benefits. It reflects a judgment by the American people that the benefits of its restrictions on the Government outweighs the costs.

Facts.

The federal law criminalized the commercial creation, sale, or possession of any visual or auditory depiction where a living animal is intentionally tortured or killed if that conduct violates the federal or state law unless the depiction has serious religious, scientific or educational value. The law primarily focused on “crush videos” that show torture or killing of helpless animals to appeal to a sexual fetish, it was not limited to such videos.

Issue.

Does the federal law criminalized the commercial creation, sale, or possession of any depiction where a living animal is intentionally tortured or killed if that conduct violates the federal or state law unless the depiction has serious religious, scientific or educational value violate the Constitution?

Held.

Yes, but the Court did not decide whether a statute limited to crush videos or other depictions of extreme animal cruelty would be constitutional. It only held that the statute at issue is substantially overly broad and thus is invalid under the First Amendment because depiction of animal cruelty has been considered a type of speech, which is entitled to the First Amendment protection.

Dissent.

Justice Alito

The First Amendment does not protect violent criminal conduct, even if engaged in for expressive purposes. Crush videos record violent criminal acts and the crimes are committed solely to record such videos. Congress presented evidence that the only way to prevent such crimes was to target the sale of the videos. Under these circumstances, First Amendment does not command Congress to step aside and allow the underlying crimes.

Discussion.

The Government’s argument that whether a speech enjoys the First Amendment protection depends on a categorical balancing of the value of the speech against its societal costs is without a merit. The First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech does not extend only to categories of speech that survive an ad hoc balancing of relative social costs and benefits. It reflects a judgment by the American people that the benefits of its restrictions on the Government outweighs the costs. The Government argues that animal cruelty depictions are intrinsically related to criminal conduct and the statute is narrowly tailored to prevent crimes arising from the depictions. This argument, however, does not support the view that banning such depictions may survive the First Amendment scrutiny.